Teaching Community Medicine: A Report on Innovative Experiment

Abstract:

This paper describes an innovative experiment in the course on Community, Medicine during the seventh semester of medical school at the Federal University of Pelotas. The infrastructure, faculty, and methodology for the year 1997 are identified. Growth in students’ cognitive skills, as tested by a qualifying exam, was about 20%. Beginning in the first semester of 1998, a democratic self intervention was iniciated in which the number of teachers involved was rediced, the teaching methodology was changed, and new evaluation techniques were included to measure the students’ progress. The cognitive qualification test was used to assess students’cognitive grows and showed that in the four semesters of the experiment to date, students’abilities have inscreased by some 50%, i.e., more than twice as much as with the previous methodology. The methods, main results, and limitations of this type of innovative approach are reviewed. Similar experiments elsewhere are needed to monitor advance in knowledge in this area.

Despriptors:
Medical Education - trends; Community Medicine - education